Oh, I don't think anyone is shut down. Hackman, who never was anyone's idea of a classically handsome matinee idol, in 1988 or before or after, gives a master class in that kitchen scene in how to be sexy and magnetic anyway ("Not even if he loved a woman passionately?"). He and Rowlands are brilliant there. He's also so tender as Larry's "dream" self, talking about his novel, his wife, his "Hlenka" character.
Holm has a thankless role, yes, but a necessary one.
The main thing I value about the film is how all of these great actors, principally Rowlands but all of them, are given space to create these people, and they're all surprisingly specific at it, from Plimpton's forlorn teenager to Houseman's ancient patriarch (Stiers is dead-on as the younger version). Harris Yulin has, I think, two scenes, and is heartbreaking as the brother, because he doesn't *try* to yank at anyone's heartstrings. He just matter-of-factly lays it out there, what his sister said to him and how he's lived with it all these years.
There is no better demonstration of Allen's supremacy as an actors' director. The film isn't on the level of Wild Strawberries, which was one of a kind, but it's not just a boiled-sterile aping of it either. It has some integrity as a piece on the same themes, even though it's awfully diagrammatic.
Its reputation seems to be on the upswing. Both the Telegraph and Time Out pieces of 2015-16 ranking Allen's nearly 50 films had it very high. Telegraph had it fourth, Time Out 13th.
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